Billionaire businessman Donald Trump made Ted Cruz's citizenship a household conversation, but it's Democratic Florida Rep. Alan Grayson who will challenge the Texas senator's eligibility to run for president.
If Cruz wins the Republican nomination, that is.
Grayson, an attorney and candidate for the Senate seat Marco Rubio is vacating, told U.S. News and The Hill newspaper he will file a lawsuit challenging Cruz’s eligibility if Cruz overtakes Trump -- a scenario U.S. News claims is at least plausible with the senator besting Trump in some Iowa polls.
A lawsuit is a concern for Republicans and could make a mess of the election -- as Trump has said, "hog-tying Cruz with a years-long legal challenge."
It's now common knowledge that Cruz was born in Calgary, Canada, in 1970 to an American mother and a Cuban father who later gained U.S. citizenship. There’s no court precedent on whether foreign-born Americans meet the Constitution’s “natural-born citizen” requirement, but there’s more to scrutiny of Cruz’s eligibility.
“If he’s not qualified to be president according to our Constitution, then he certainly should not serve,” Grayson says, going over his notes for the possible lawsuit. “There’s quite a lot of stuff here.”
Grayson brings up other issues.
Besides the question of whether Cruz’s birth in Canada disqualifies him from being considered a natural-born citizen -- for which Grayson points out there are clashing historical claims -- the Florida Senate candidate notes there’s disagreement about whether both parents of U.S. citizens born overseas must be citizens.
And what about Cruz’s mother, Eleanor Cruz?
Grayson says Eleanor Cruz may have forfeited her U.S. citizenship by taking a Canadian oath of citizenship, and that he’s seen no evidence she actually was born in the U.S.
Cruz’s mom, he says, “may have elected to give up her U.S. citizenship -- she wasn’t there on a visitor’s visa for five years, that’s for sure.”
U.S. News quotes Grayson as saying, “If his mother, who clearly worked in Canada for years and years, did so while becoming a Canadian citizen and taking an oath, which is how you do it in Canada, she lost her citizenship by U.S. law, specifically Section 349 of the Immigration and Nationality Act.”
Here is a video interview The Hill had with Grayson, in which Grayson says he will sue if it comes down to a Cruz candidacy and calls Cruz's citizenship "a legitimate issue."
Cruz, meanwhile, continues to insist he is a legal native-born American under the dictates of constitutional law.
Reach Nancy Smith at nsmith@sunshinestatenews.com or at 228-282-2423. Twitter: @NancyLBSmith
